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your pardon?’
    ‘Nuns. One always assumes they resent being locked up and want to escape.’
    ‘Really? I envy them the peace.’ She saw his questioning glance. ‘It’s not always so quiet here,’ she said. ‘The boys are all at work and the girls are being sat on by Madame Vance in the schoolroom. There are times when I think the privacy of a nun’s cell could be wonderful.’
    ‘Oh dear,’ he said, mock serious, and she smiled, if something so grave could be called smiling.
    They reached a wrought-iron bench in the shifting golden shade of a weeping willow, which seemed like a destination, so they sat. Winifred watched George row Jack, which gave Harry the opportunity to watch her. She was, he decided, quite lovely, with fair hair piled upon her head in the kind of relaxed arrangement he was sure had taken a good hour to achieve, and china-blue eyes and a creamy complexion. She was extraordinarily solemn, sad even, yet with a suggestion of irony, of the kind of weary humour he liked best.
    ‘I’m afraid I’m not very good company,’ he said at last, because he had noticed Mrs Wells glancing anxiously their way.
    ‘No, no,’ Winifred protested, turning back to face him. ‘You’re . . . I’m a hopeless conversationalist. I’d always rather listen.’
    ‘Me too. Do you worry about your sister? On the water, I mean.’
    ‘George? No. Not really. She’s an excellent swimmer. When we were little, it amused Father to throw sticks for her to fetch, as though she were a dog.’
    ‘Your mother said she stood up to him.’
    ‘Oh yes. She’s quite fearless.’
    ‘Was he so fearful?’
    ‘Yes. When we heard his key in the lock, we would run upstairs.’
    ‘Like nuns.’
    ‘Quite. Only I’m not sure nuns are allowed to run. He made poor Mother so nervous she would get palpitations.’
    ‘Yet their marriage was a happy one.’
    ‘Not really. Just . . . fruitful. He only took her out once in all their years together.’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Truthfully. He liked her to repeat the story, as it made him laugh. Just once he took her into town for the evening in her best finery. They went to the theatre and then for lobster and champagne and then, when they came out on to the pavement, there was a tremendous glow in the sky to the west. I suppose it was a sunset but he pointed it out to her and said, “Look, my dear. That might be our cherubs burning in their beds!” And she was so horrified, she insisted he call a cab for her to go home at once while he went on to his club to meet his friends. It was by way of a lesson, I suppose, and he never took her out again and she never suggested he take her. She used to say he was her street angel – so charming and amusing to his friends and clients and a perfect tyrant in the home.’
    ‘How dreadful for you.’
    ‘Oh, it wasn’t so bad. We lived here, after all, in comfort. And he never beat us or shouted. He simply had a cruel tongue. Well, he beat my brothers sometimes.’
    ‘Why do you suppose he married, if it pleased him so little?’
    ‘But it did please him, I think; it magnified him. And he married for love. Mother was extremely pretty once. He wanted sons, of course, to take on the partnership one day, and he enjoyed having us all walk to church behind him. He liked the fact that we filled two pews.’
    ‘He was a patriarch.’
    She nodded sadly. ‘That’s the word.’
    ‘Are any of your brothers like him?’
    ‘Bob,’ she said, without a moment’s hesitation, so that Harry immediately worried that Bob might be about to appear. She stood suddenly. ‘We should fetch George back,’ she said. ‘It’s quite sunny and she’s gone out without her hat and will be getting a labourer’s tan.’
    Jack and George were enjoying themselves too much, however. Jack had resumed rowing duties and George was trailing a hand in the water. She said something that made Jack laugh so hard he had to stop rowing briefly. The two of them looked like an